Figure 2 shows the difference in adherence between initial and final submissions for the 465 papers accepted for
publication at CHI 2014, where authors
were given specific details on the accessibility barriers of their respective papers. In four of five recommendations,
accessibility of the papers increased 5%
to 10% based on authors receiving feedback on accessibility. Unclear is why
adherence to one recommendation (tab
order) decreased slightly. There may be
cases where authors had to update their
final submission based on feedback
from the publication vendor and forgot
to reapply the accessibility changes.

Note that 30% accessibility of pub-lished papers or even 60% accessibil-ity is not ideal. The goal, as spelled outby the SIGCHI Accessibility Commu-nity, is 100% compliance. However,accessibility is a multi-pronged effort,and paper accessibility gets attentionbecause it is an easy-to-measure met-ric; equally important are many otherdetails we have discussed here (suchas having accessibility chairs at eachconference, proper information flows,and accessible physical locations).For instance, in choosing the site forthe CHI 2019 conference—Glasgow,U.K.—accessibility criteria were specif-ically taken from the city’s proposals,as well as from on-site walkthroughs,which led to one city with a fully acces-sible conference venue being chosenGiving authors individual notificationof their papers’ accessibility betweenacceptance and camera-ready submis-sion in 2014 clearly increased the levelof accessibility compliance. While ac-cessibility of papers did increase, 16%to 26% is still not ideal, with a long wayto go. As a comparison, we analyzed theaccessibility of published papers fromthe ASSETS 2015 conference, thoughthe sample size for ASSETS papers was
31, much smaller than the number ofCHI papers in any given year. ASSETSgenerally uses two different approach-es that have not yet been attempted bythe CHI conference: The first is thatauthors are required (not just encour-aged) to make their papers accessibleand the second that SIGACCESS, spon-sor of the ASSETS conference, specifi-cally requires the company that is con-tracted for publishing, Sheridan, tomanage the accessibility process andcheck for accessibility. We do not knowthe specifics of what is required in itscontracts with Sheridan, and it is pos-sible Sheridan is required to check fordifferent accessibility features than inour evaluation. Given identical criteria,compliance for ASSETS 2015 paperswas much higher than for CHI papers(in any given year) but still not at the100% goal. In 2015, 74.1% of the AS-SETS papers had alternative text andtable headers, 93.5% had generated atagged .pdf file, and 90.3% had default-language information included in the.pdf, but only 51.6% of ASSETS 2015 pa-pers had a correct tab order.

Figure 2. Difference in adherence among the 465 accepted papers for CHI 2014 between
submitted and final versions (%). The bars here are likewise covered in patterned fill,
rather than colors, to make the graphs more inclusive for colorblind readers.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Alternative Text Table Headers Tagged PDF Default Language Tab Order

Submitted Published

Figure 1. Percentage of published papers that adhered to each of the five recommendations (%), 2010–2016. The bars here and in Figure 2
are covered in patterned fill, rather than colors, to make the graphs more inclusive for colorblind readers.